Our nation of ashes (from which we rise)
by Naladot
Summary: History is written by the victors, and Azula was never one to lose. In which the Fire Nation does not enjoy the end of the war.


In the spring, Zuko ordered the palace stripped of anything that reminded him of the Old Fire Nation. He had paintings torn down, emblems removed and melted away, shrines to war-gloried Fire Lords buried away in the bowels of the palace. Even he was not fool enough to challenge the spirits.

That is, until the summer, when he burned down the temple to the Bringer of War. The people said they could see Zuko and the Avatar standing in the shadow of its smoke.

Mai said nothing and scraped the fire emblems from the handles of her knives.

..

Inside the room everything was white and hushed. It was a hospital but it was a jail-Azula was not yet lost and could still distinguish the difference. It was also a tomb. Zuko came to pay his respects occasionally as he would to the dead. Azula was not yet dead, and she too could hear the shouts in the streets.

The attendant—her jailer—came to hush her. "It's only an arrest," she said softly. She would not look Azula in the eyes.

"Who?" Azula asked. Firelight danced across the wall from the small window near the ceiling. Her nails dug into her palm as she waited for the answer, knowing it would be the key to her freedom.

"I don't know," the woman said with a frown. "Another admiral, I suppose. The Fire Lord is having them tried for war crimes."

She left and Azula watched the fire on the wall. As it flickered it seemed to dance across the empty floor, up her legs and arms and into her mouth. She swallowed it down. It was a delusion but as it burned and burned it brought with it sanity. Suddenly the future spilled out in front of her, as clear as it had been years ago when she was only a girl: the country would crumble under her brother's hand.

And she would fly free.

..

Within the year came the famine. Mai pocketed her naked knives and went to the palace, where the Fire Lord had shut himself into his private rooms. They too were stripped down, colorless, his scar the reddest thing in the room.

"Is it the Avatar who has arrested this country, or you?" she asked. Zuko stirred to look at her, all at once younger and older than she expected. She had not seen him since his police raided her parents' manor on a far island, and she had protested but he had not listened.

"We had to withdraw from the Earth Kingdom," he said helplessly, his head in his hands. He looked ill. "I didn't know—I didn't know it would come to this."

So the answer was both. The Avatar was a foolish child and Zuko had yet to move beyond guilt, haunted by images of suffering he used to recall to her in private, trying to justify his reasons for burning away every link between his country and its past. "You act like we're paying penance," Mai said, fixing her steel gaze upon him. He blinked and looked away, a frown crossing his face.

"We are," he said. "A hundred years worth!"

She saw that he believed it, and that terrified her far more than the famine.

"You don't understand," he said.

"Well," she answered, "you're right about that."

..

On an outer island, his father had built a large memorial to Zuko's great-grandfather, who killed all the airbenders. Zuko had first come to the island when the memorial was built, standing in his father's shadow as they raised the wooden figure onto its pedestal. Now, here to destroy it, Zuko could not bring himself to look over at Aang. He looked instead at the sea. There was a cold wind from the south that would carry the smoke across the city.

Zuko and Aang came to a halt and waited for the crowds to fall back. The people brought with them everything of the old regime—books, propaganda, pictures, carvings. A mass of objects lay piled at the feet of his great-grandfather, who glared into the gray sky.

"The last one," Aang said, gesturing to the stern-faced statue. Only Aang was wrong. Zuko was sure he could never wash his country free of their guilt.

He raised a hand and lit the memorial. It took a moment, then caught, burning white-hot. No one had stayed to watch it burn.

Aang turned away. Zuko moved to follow him but saw, floating on the wind, a paper. He caught it and smoothed its burned edges.

It was an old wanted poster of him, the characters spelling out his treason, his scar glaring up at him.

..

The famine grew worse. The people grew restless, then murderous.

Azula, like a phoenix, rose from her ashes.

The room was only a jail, only a tomb so long as she was dead. But she clawed her way back to life and cracked open its shell, burning the place down as she left.

She walked along the streets and listened to the quiet. Saw the naked space on the city gate where a Fire Nation emblem should have been, the ashes where a temple should have stood.

"This is not the song our nation was supposed to sing," she said to herself. But the people would hear, they would come to her!

A month later, Mai evaded Azula's growing army and said, "I made a mistake."

..

At summer solstice Zuko's words rang out across the city. "We cannot forget the crimes we committed, the horrors we believed in! We cannot pretend we were justified! We can only march forward, repenting the past, restoring our future in harmony with the rest of the world."

The rest of his speech was drowned by the shouts and screams of the people as Azula's rebellion surged forward. At first, Zuko thought they were shouts of terror. Then he saw the fire emblem on thousands of flags, and knew terror himself.

"You have to run," Mai said behind him. She covered his face with a mask and led him through the streets, dodging swelling crowds, to a waiting ship. He pushed her arm away and made to head back for the city where smoke was rising.

"Not if you want to live," she said, gripping his arm. He stared at her, gaping for words that would not come.

"Why?" he asked.

She looked at him with something he didn't recognize. After a moment, he saw it was pity.

"This is our country, Zuko," she said. "Though maybe you don't believe that anymore."

She turned to leave. He did not expect to see her back and cried, desperately, "You're not coming with me?"

She didn't even glance his way. "I have penance to pay, too."

..

Azula raised her hand to the crowd and the people rejoiced, jets of flame firing into the air in jubilant salute.

"Fire Lord Zuko took this country from you!" she cried. The people responded. "But I have not forgotten who we are! I will restore this country to its rightful place!"

The crowd was so deafening she might not have noticed Mai slip in behind her. But she turned her head slightly, not looking at her, and said "Is he dead?"

Mai did not answer.

If he was not dead he would return with an army, but even an army could not snuff out the celebration going on in the streets. This was the promise that had burned inside of her, the certainty of her rightful place on the throne. The country was hers as it had never been Zuko's, was her birthright as it was not the Avatar's. It was Azula whose name would be sung, in the end.

"Why should I trust you, Mai, if you helped my brother escape?" Azula asked quietly.

From the shadows, Mai answered, "I don't ask you to trust me. I just ask that you let me live." She stepped forward, hands hidden in her sleeves. "This is my country, too."

Azula smiled, and turned back to the city at her feet.


End file.
